HOW-TO: 2018 Leaf ZE1 OEM headunit replacement (7" -> 8")

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Danep82 said:
Hi i tried this mod in the UK a few months ago but could not get the 8" unit to work i do have all the pinouts though if your still in need and even a diagram i made to show what wires go where ?

My headunit kept showing LOCKED RED or LOCKED GREEN so i gave up

Dan

Hi! Great addition to the thread, thanks so much! Glad to see someone else is also trying to do the same upgrade :D

As for the locked message, you need the dealer to code the new headunit to work in your car. It's still locked to the previous vehicle's VIN. I'm like 95% sure.
This is a classic Nissan lock mechanism if you switch headunits.
 
Danep82 said:
Is that what you had to do? get the vin coded?

Thanks

Mine didn't have that issue as the previous owner had "unlocked" it at the dealer to work on any car before removing it from his Leaf and selling it to me, as he was installing the Unavi replacement headunit on his.

You could try to enter the service menu on the new unit if you can (menu button + left, right, left on the right dial) and check the error codes, you should see one saying "Locked ECU wrong VID received" or something, like here: https://imgur.io/ujgV4VG

Mine says it too, however it functions normally, I guess due to the unlocking.
 
ALL GUCCI NOW

Update: I repinned the final 6 pins as per Danep82's (THANK YOU!) diagram, and everything works perfectly now.
During my test drive, I was bummed to find that my GPS location was off by 500 meters (display showed I was driving in the ocean) and the compass did not work on the instrument cluster display. However, on my way back from the shop, it worked perfectly! I guess the navigation just needed a bit of time to calibrate my location accurately.

I also made some modifications to the FM antenna connector, as it did not fit the new headunit directly. The result isn't too pretty (I just shaved half a cm off each side and made a hole on the bottom for fitment) but it fits now and the FM radio works perfectly: https://i.imgur.com/dCa1dyK.jpg

Also, I had a lot of difficulty trying to find a suitable physical connector pin to achieve ground and IGN on the 20-pin connector. So in the end I just skipped IGN, which so far has not affected anything. I checked for continuity between the ground pin (pin 19 in your diagram) and the chassis of the headunit and of course there was continuity, so I just ran a wire from the headunit chassis to a screw on the car's chassis nearby. Ground achieved!

The final adapter cable I have isn't too pretty and if I were to make one again, I'm sure I'd make a far better one, but it works: https://i.imgur.com/cURftZl.jpg

I was so sure that this time everything will work that I buttoned up the car completely and put all screws and covers back in their place :D

Here is the final result:
https://i.imgur.com/z3fjGls.jpg

On Monday, the dealer will try configuring (and calibrating I guess) the 360 cameras on the new headunit for me. That's the final thing that doesn't work. Fingers crossed.
 
Danep82 said:
out of interest where did you purchase your Headunit?

Dan

I've seen them for sale at auto wreckers, but this one I got from a local auction site. Previous owner installed the Unavi unit on his so he sold this one away.
 
Car just came back from the dealer and unfortunately the 360 cameras are still not working. They tried to configure the car, but this "combo" is not available to their diagnostics tool (old car + new headunit).

However, upon leaving the lot I noticed the available settings options in the menus had changed to the Tekna options (no bass boost option etc.) signaling that the headunit is now configured for Tekna, thus hopefully for the 360 cameras as well.

What I'm thinking now, is that the ignition cable that I still have disconnected is the reason. Since the cameras do not operate when car is not fully "on", I'm thinking maybe the headunit feeds the 12V ignition power to the camera computer and thus that cable needs to be connected as well for the cameras to be operational. Shame I don't have the service manual to confirm this, but there must be a reason for this cable to exist in the connector in the first place.

Let's see, I'll try getting that cable connected later and retry.
 
OLD POST, THIS MESSAGE CAN BE IGNORED
Well...bad news. While trying to figure out a way to tap the ignition wire into the 20-pin connector, the new headunit let out a bit of the magic smoke. I guess there's not enough of it inside anymore to make it work, as it no longer turns on :)

I have no idea what happened, but for me this is the end of this project. Changed back to the original headunit and that one still works, so clearly it isn't just a blown fuse on the car side; the new headunit is gone. Maybe I'll come back to this in a few years if the price of the new headunits goes down, can't risk wasting another $500.

As a final update, while opening up the headunit to see if I could spot something clearly wrong on the PCB, I found out why it it didn't require any coding to work with my car: previous owner has soldered in some kind of microcontroller :D
https://i.imgur.com/U6opTVE.jpg

If the ignition cable connection didn't work, my next ideas would have been to either try replacing the AVM camera control unit with a newer one, maybe the resolution has changed (and the control units seem to be reasonably cheap online) or trying to reach it via SSH on USB to see if there are configuration options to change. https://github.com/ea/bosch_headunit_root/blob/main/docs/rootshell_howto.md
 
that's unfortunate, thanks for your work and research thus far. I just started this adventure, head unit just arrived. waiting for the connectors to make the adapter based on schematic posted.
 
drienties said:
that's unfortunate, thanks for your work and research thus far. I just started this adventure, head unit just arrived. waiting for the connectors to make the adapter based on schematic posted.

Great - I'll keep following the thread to see if you post updates! Good luck and I hope you get it working, I'm sure I was close :)

Where did you buy your headunit and how much did it cost, if you don't mind sharing?
 
Found mine at partan.eu for 320 euro ex shipping

Looked for some reviews first because it looked a bit shady. But turns out to be a normal company. Had mine shipped from Lithuania to the netherlands in about 3 days. no idea if it works yet though, will start tinkering this weekend.

Unit looks fine and undamaged, most likely they salvage parts from wrecked cars.

I'm giving this a go because my old unit quit working 4mo out of warranty, and while nissan did offer me a "discount" on a new radio, the price was way to high for me.
 
drienties said:
Found mine at partan.eu for 320 euro ex shipping

Looked for some reviews first because it looked a bit shady. But turns out to be a normal company. Had mine shipped from Lithuania to the netherlands in about 3 days. no idea if it works yet though, will start tinkering this weekend.

Unit looks fine and undamaged, most likely they salvage parts from wrecked cars.

I'm giving this a go because my old unit quit working 4mo out of warranty, and while nissan did offer me a "discount" on a new radio, the price was way to high for me.
Wow, not a bad price. Good find! I was actually looking at partan.eu yesterday while searching for the camera control unit - had exactly the same thoughts as you because the site looked somewhat shady.

Yeah Nissan charges exorbitant prices for the headunit replacements, if we can get everything working here it'd be an excellent option for folks needing a new one.
Is your car a Tekna? As I see it, for Acenta and N-Connecta there probably aren't too many issues as far as the replacement goes because you can tap into the different camera inputs on the back. In fact, you could probably add a reverse camera for Leafs without one.
 
Mine is a Tekna, so fingers crossed. i might have some trips to the dealer for coding the VIN and other stuff on the new unit.

Hope you can get your unit revived and it's only a blown fuse.

Had a look at the inside of my new unit trough the vent holes and the extra microcontroller PCB on your's indeed is not present in mine so most likely an addition from the previous owner. wonder if there's more documentation to find on it somewhere.

update:
Minor setback. connectors arrived. no pins and 2x male instead of male + female.
Since the old radio is broken anyway I might just repin the current connectors instead of making a cable. Hoping to make a start this weekend.
 
Progress, repinned the original connectors according to Danep82's diagram.
Only thing missing is the extra ground pin on the small connector. fired up the car and radio anyway to check.

Radio powers on to the locked red notice and i'm unable to get into the diagnostics menu. CAN network seems to work since i'm getting my menu items back in the dash which were missing since the old radio broke. had a split second of satic noise on startup from the FM radio as well.

i'll sort out the ground pin and then it's off to the dealer to see if they want/can unlock my radio.

leafspy does trow a evc-279 DTC, i will check all my pinning again before going to the dealer. But so far it's looking ok.

What i did notice was that my car is missing the pins for the TCU Tel pins, not sure if this is a model specefic thing. i can remotely control my HVAC etc so assume it has a TCU

I think i also figured out your extra PCB in the radio: https://zelemar.eu/nissan-can-filter-installation/
looks like it is indeed to bypass the vin coding. might be a plan B if unlocking via the dealer is not possible/to expensive
 
drienties said:
Progress, repinned the original connectors according to Danep82's diagram.
Only thing missing is the extra ground pin on the small connector. fired up the car and radio anyway to check.

Radio powers on to the locked red notice and i'm unable to get into the diagnostics menu. CAN network seems to work since i'm getting my menu items back in the dash which were missing since the old radio broke. had a split second of satic noise on startup from the FM radio as well.

i'll sort out the ground pin and then it's off to the dealer to see if they want/can unlock my radio.

leafspy does trow a evc-279 DTC, i will check all my pinning again before going to the dealer. But so far it's looking ok.

What i did notice was that my car is missing the pins for the TCU Tel pins, not sure if this is a model specefic thing. i can remotely control my HVAC etc so assume it has a TCU

I think i also figured out your extra PCB in the radio: https://zelemar.eu/nissan-can-filter-installation/
looks like it is indeed to bypass the vin coding. might be a plan B if unlocking via the dealer is not possible/to expensive

Wow, that is great!!! How did you get the pins out of the connector? Did you push them out with a tool or something? That's some Houdini stuff right there!

Based on my tests, the extra ground pin is unnecessary on the small connector, as there is continuity between the metal chassis of the display and that pin. So you can just run a cable from the chassis of the display to some ground point in the car. I ran it to the metal railing that the display assembly is screwed onto with the four screws. But hey - take it with a grain of salt - I'm the guy who managed to destroy their display.

As for the ignition cable that now needs to go from the big connector to the small connector, were you successful with that? It was so hard to tap into that pin on the small connector on my car that I was contemplating just running a cable directly onto the PCB of the display, bypassing the connector entirely.

EVC-279 indeed seems to be an error code received from the AV Control Unit.

As for the TCU pins, that is strange. Was your original unit with the 7" display? Not the 5" one? I am wondering if the TCU communicates via CANbus on your car. Not sure why it would do that though. Yours is 2018 right?

Great find with the Zelemar shop!! This looks to be exactly what was installed on mine. I was wondering how the previous owner was able to install this kind of microcontroller inside it, but it makes more sense now that it's an off-the-shelf preprogrammed PCB :D

I think the dealer should be able to get the display coded to your car, you just have to bring both keys with you. They charge for either 30 mins or 1 hour of labor at least here for the operation, 85 euros. So more expensive than the Zelemar CAN filter, however you might have to visit the dealer afterwards anyhow, if your new AV Control Unit wasn't in a Tekna previously. Do you happen to know the VIN of the car it came from in Lithuania? Wondering if with that you could check if it was a Tekna, and that thus there might be no need to involve the dealer.

As for my unit, it's completely toasted unfortunately. I have now decided that if you're able to get yours working with the 360° cameras, I'm buying another one and making another adapter cable from the ground up. Fingers crossed for you!! :D
 
i'll take some pictures when i'm home. basicly on the front of both connectors there is a cover you can remove. then the second step is to undo the locking tab. for the small connector you can pry it upwards to unlock it. for the big one its a up/backwards sliding action.

After thats done, with a tiny screwdriver or pin you can push down the locking tab on the inside for the respective pin in pull it out from the back.

i followed the diagram (minus the missing TCU pins) and did not have any issues with pins not fitting.

One of the USB connectors on the back goes to the TCU i think, so i'm guessing its USB + CAN maybe. Mine is a 2018 Tekna.
I don't have any pictures on hand at the moment, but my old radio is one of these
H455DB_27_1.jpg


Regarding the VIN lock, i decided to go straight for plan B and ordered the CAN filter, i will be mounting it externally and not inside the radio since the level for soldering on the SMD components on the inside is beyond my comfort level.

If i can get everything done without the dealer that would be a plus for me and everyone who want's to attempt this in the future. unfortunatly i do not know if the donor car was a tekna or not so i might have to get it recoded anyway.

Guessing by the LEAF parts partan has available i'm hoping it was a tekna they broke down, i'm seeing BOSE speakers and a auto park button available, but that's maybe just some wishfull thinking on my side :)
 
Alright, thanks a lot! I was looking at the original connectors and they looked like there was no way to unlock them, but good to know it is possible.

Mine was also a 2018 Tekna with the same display as in your photo. Really surprising Nissan would use two different types of TCU modules. Although now that I looked at the pinouts of the TCU module in mine, I don't see any pins clearly indicating that it would actually be connected to the headunit on mine either (with the exception of two "AUDIO HU OUT" pins). Unless the power is input into the TCU via the headunit. Otherwise there's just the CAN pins and microphone pins. So it could be that I don't have the TCU cables either, I just never took a look at the cabling since I was making an adapter and not switching the pins directly :D

External mounting for the CAN filter seems like a wise option, as the PCB mounting looked like daunting task for sure with not a lot of room for error.

Based on what you said it indeed seems likely your new display is from a Tekna as well.
 
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